


Overdue

by allvilelysunk



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Mentions of childbirth, Pregnancy, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27692968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allvilelysunk/pseuds/allvilelysunk
Summary: An expectant Fire Lady Mai has a day of uninterrupted, hard-earned relaxation forced upon her by her husband, Fire Lord Zuko.
Relationships: Druk & Kiyi (Avatar), Druk & Zuko (Avatar), Kiyi & Mai (Avatar), Kiyi & Zuko (Avatar), Mai & Tom-Tom (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Tom-Tom & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 110





	Overdue

“…I know better than to ask you to stop working, but can’t you slow down a little, Mai?”

Fire Lady Mai glanced up from the steaming cup of tea and seemingly endless scroll that sat on the low table before her. Fire Lord Zuko stood in the tall threshold of the study, his arms folded loosely across his chest. Like any of his facial expressions, his concern was painfully evident in the knit in his brow and the meaningful shimmer in his eyes.

The corner of her lip quirked with understated amusement. “Is that an order, my lord?” she purred.

“No, but…”

“But what?” challenged Mai playfully. Her head tilted slightly, and her midnight tresses tumbled off her shoulder like an inky waterfall.

“You _know_ what.” The Fire Lord’s shoulders slumped scarcely—just enough for Mai to take note and count it as a win.

“So, I put on a little weight and I can’t work?” she teased. She patted the bulbous mound that perched on her lap, and she smiled serenely when she felt it respond to her touch with movement.

Compared to her mother’s two harrowing experiences, Mai’s pregnancy had been blissfully lucky thus far. She bore all the typical aches and pains, the sickness, the ungainliness, the all-consuming fatigue that never seemed to abate no matter how much she slept (and she slept a _lot_ , mind you), but few of the perils that had plagued Michi. Above all else, what ailed the expectant Fire Lady now was the waiting, the torturous, Agni-awful _waiting_.

“ _Ugh_ ,” groaned Zuko in turn. His arms fell at his sides, and with quiet footfalls he approached her and knelt on the silken cushion next to hers. “It’s not unreasonable for you to take a break. You were due _a week ago_. I think you owe it to yourself to relax before our life is completely upended.” Reaching out, Zuko rested his hand on her shoulder and leaned in close. “If not for yourself, then do it for me?”

Mai chuckled hoarsely. She, too, tilted her body toward him as much as she was able. The tips of their noses brushed each other with a feather light touch. “Those puppy eyes don’t work on me, Fire Dork. They never have, and they never will.” Between sentences, she pilfered a kiss, which he gladly reciprocated. “And I _am_ doing it for you. All this”—she gestured toward the unrolled scroll before her and the others that laid just beyond it, all awaiting her careful review—“is for you. For _all_ of us, really. Remember the last time you had to do all this work by yourself? You were so irritable that you almost set the palace on fire.”

“Uncle is more than happy to pick up your slack while he’s here,” Zuko countered, his eyebrow cocked disapprovingly.

Mai sighed. “Alright, well, maybe I’m doing this for me, too.” She cradled his left cheek in her palm. Her long fingernails danced tenderly over the coarse ridges of his burn. “I’ll be bored to tears if I have to lay around in bed knitting blankets and baby clothes. You knew when you married me that the _demure wife and mother_ routine would always elude me. Besides, the work is distracting me from the waiting.”

Zuko gave her a flat look. “And you knew when you married me that I wasn’t expecting that from you. A break doesn’t have to mean becoming what the traditionalists wish you were.” In his ensuing pause, his eyes lit up suddenly and a grin began to stretch across his lips. “Know what? I’m going to clear our schedule for the rest of the day. If I can’t bully you into relaxing alone, then I’ll just have to relax with you, huh?”

Mai now wore a grin to match her husband’s, understated in her emotionally conservative way but fond and flirtatious all the same. “ _That’s_ an idea.”

* * *

Activity one of The Day of Uninterrupted, Hard-Earned Relaxation was a reliable favorite of theirs.

Mai hummed with delight and licked residual custard from her lips. The last of her fruit tart slice in hand, she guided it toward Zuko’s mouth, and he snickered quietly as he accepted it.

The reposing Fire Lady adjusted her uneven weight in Zuko’s half embrace while they lounged lazily across their most frequently occupied chaise. The sun hung aloft at its zenith in the sky, but they were blessedly shielded from its oppressive afternoon rays underneath the cool shade of the awning above them. Swallowing his bite, Zuko pressed a lingering kiss to Mai’s temple, and she closed her eyes and angled her head close, basking in his presence.

“Mmm, it tastes wonderful,” came Mai’s gravelly drawl. “As always.”

“Fruit tarts for lunch,” Zuko mused against her skin, puffing it with his warm breath. “That might be the best idea you’ve ever had.”

“You’ll have to credit the kid as much as you do me. I’ve been hungrier than a starving lion turtle since breakfast.”

Snorting, Zuko rubbed Mai’s belly appreciatively. “Thanks, kid,” he amended. “Why don’t you come out so Mom isn’t the one who has to do all the eating anymore?”

Mai huffed. She rested both of her hands atop her husband’s. “I’ve been begging the little brat to come out for a whole week, Zuko. I think they’re busy milking the in utero experience for all its worth.”

“Did you talk to Katara again this morning?” Though his features remained as tranquil as she had ever seen them, Mai would be remiss if she didn’t notice the worried stitch in his forehead.

“Mm-hm. She said there’s nothing to worry about yet. If nothing happens in another week, then she’ll have to induce, but for now…” She scowled. “For now, we wait.”

Fire Lord Zuko pouted in a manner more befitting an indignant child than the Fire Nation’s illustrious head of state. “We’ve waited over nine months already. We put in the time. _You_ suffered a lot—and still are. I don’t know about you, but I’d like the reward now.” He glared over Mai’s head and out past the balcony contemplatively. “There’s really _nothing_ she can do?”

“Not yet. I’ve heard the odd rumor about exercise or spicy food inducing labor, but Katara said that’s all a load of bisonshit. Typical.”

Mai had spent these six months since informing the world of the imminent arrival of the long-awaited heir fielding absurd demand after paranoid superstition after unfounded fear. Reminiscing on them now, Mai huffed again. “Of course, I should have known that nothing I heard was true, not even the things that sounded logical enough.” Amid her lamentation, Mai grasped for another slice of the rapidly diminishing fruit tart.

“Although…” She took a bite and let Zuko stew in anticipation until she finished chewing. “I spoke with your mother, and she told me one method that she swore worked with Kiyi.”

“Oh, yeah?” Zuko asked. He tore his gaze away from the Caldera City skyline and fixed it on her once more, smiling faintly. “What’s that?”

A wicked look stole over Mai’s elegant countenance, which had somehow retained its sharp, dangerous angularity even as the rest of her body rounded and softened to accommodate their baby. “She said she had a lot of sex with Ikem.”

The pleasant smile dropped off Zuko’s face in an instant, supplanted by disgust. “…I see why she neglected to tell me about that,” he muttered sourly.

Lifting her hand from her abdomen, Mai smacked Zuko’s arm gently. “Grow up,” she admonished him lightheartedly, a laugh woven into her low voice.

“What do you mean, _grow up_? I don’t care how old you are; no one wants to hear about their mother… doing _that_.” He raised his only eyebrow. “Do _you_?”

“No, but _I_ haven’t had the luxury of avoiding some of those nasty details, unlike you. My mother and I might not be anywhere near as close as you and yours, but I’ve gone to her for similar advice and heard similarly disturbing answers.” As if to emphasize her point, Mai gave a slight shiver despite the summer heat and drew even closer to her husband. “Anyway, you’re completely missing the point, as _usual_. Katara confirmed that there’s absolutely no risk in the two of us having as much sex as we please. She even said it would relieve some of my discomfort.” She waggled her brow suggestively. “I, for one, think that’s a sublime way for us to spend the rest of our day. What about you?”

Zuko’s eyes flicked skyward as he pretended to thoroughly mull over her suggestion. “I will take it into consideration, my lady,” he replied in his most severe and stately inflection. “But first, I believe we have a fruit tart to finish.”

“Your priorities are perfectly ordered, my lord,” she retorted. With that, she took another voracious bite.

* * *

Activity two of The Day of Uninterrupted, Hard-Earned Relaxation was not, in fact, sex. (It had made its way onto the unofficial itinerary, but it wasn’t scheduled until much later in the day.) Instead, a joint visit from Kiyi and Tomohiko, who had coordinated their plans to return home for their niece or nephew’s birth, brought the four of them out into the courtyard together.

“Who’s my favorite little noodle baby? _You_ are! Yes, you are!”

Zuko sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, watching his youngest sister cradle and rock Druk by the pond as he sat on a stone bench beside Mai. Druk, for his part, appeared positively tickled to be receiving such undivided and adoring attention. A steady stream of smoke billowed from his nostrils as he purred contentedly, and the smug expression on his scaly face reeked of pride.

“He’s a dragon, not a baby,” Zuko protested.

“Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive,” asserted Kiyi. “And don’t you pretend you don’t baby him, too. Druk here told me _all_ about the late night cuddling and mindless babbling. Didn’t you, Druk?”

With her thumb, index finger, and middle finger clasped gently behind Druk’s head, Kiyi puppeteered a dracontine nod.

“You’ve been caught!” she exclaimed, pointing accusingly at Zuko. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Zuko glowered and said nothing, which, in Kiyi’s mind, fully validated her allegations. She grinned triumphantly, broad enough to remind Zuko and Mai of one Toph Beifong.

Kiyi turned to Mai. “He’s going to be such a pushover with the baby, isn’t he?”

“He’ll be clay in their hands,” Mai agreed, much to Zuko’s chagrin.

“Why does everyone think I’m this big softy?” a scowling Zuko bemoaned. “Where did that even come from?”

“Lived experience,” his wife offered matter-of-factly.

“What’s wrong with being soft, anyway?” Tomohiko contributed, leaning against the cherry blossom tree beside the stone bench with his arms crossed. “I’ll probably be pretty soft with the baby, too, and I’m just their uncle. Zuko’s their _dad_.”

Zuko glared halfheartedly at his brother-in-law. “Thanks for the assist, Tom-Tom.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being soft,” said Mai. The level tone of her voice indicated to all three of them that the mood of the conversation had shifted to become more sober than their meaningless banter. “But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little concerned about being the bad guy.”

Zuko’s disgruntled demeanor waned as he regarded Mai with curiosity and some confusion. “What do you mean?”

Mai sighed. “I don’t want to be undermined. You have a tender heart, Zuko. It’s part of the reason I love you, but…” Her silence hung heavily in the air as she searched for the right words, but the pressure of her hand against his thigh eased Zuko. “I remember how you were with Kiyi and Tom-Tom when they were little. Sometimes you were quick to subvert our mothers when they wanted something. I just don’t want you to do that now, too. I can’t be the sole disciplinarian.”

Where the old Zuko might have seethed at such an accusation, especially one made in the presence of two outsiders to the interiority of their relationship, this Zuko considered her words carefully. She was right, undeniably so—he would occasionally sneak Kiyi sweets before dinner against Ursa’s wishes or fool around with Tom-Tom instead of encouraging him to do the homework he so often procrastinated. All it took was one longing, watery-eyed gaze and a prolonged _pleeeeeease?_ for Zuko to capitulate. Yes, Mai’s concern was valid.

“I’m glad you told me. I’ll be mindful about it.” Donning a reassuring smile, Zuko pecked Mai’s cheek, and to his surprise, she blushed faintly. “I promise, Mai,” he added in a whisper.

Kiyi chuckled to herself, prompting Mai, Zuko, and Tomohiko to cast inquisitive glances her way.

“I was just thinking about all the times Zuzu and I raided the pantries in the kitchens together,” she explained. “I pity that the kid’s going to miss out on that now. It was fun.”

“I thought you said you wanted to be the cool aunt, Kiyi,” said Zuko. “Doesn’t that mean that you’ll be the one doing mischief with the baby?”

Kiyi’s face lit up like sunbeams. “You’re right! Oh, Zuzu, I can’t wait to make your life a waking nightmare.” Minding Druk’s weight in her arms, Kiyi tapped an invisible watch on her wrist. “Come on. Any day now, baby!”

* * *

A few hours later, Mai and Zuko departed their siblings (following a lovely dinner shared among the four of them, with the welcome additions of Iroh, Katara, Ursa, and Ty Lee) and made the trek up to the highest peak of the caldera—but not without the assistance of some very fortitudinous palanquin bearers, whom the Fire Lord and Lady regretted to call upon at all, but Mai could hardly bear the thought of even light hiking in her state. There, they would engage in yet another age-old favorite pastime: complaining as they watched the sun set.

Or, so Zuko initially believed.

“Orange is—”

“Such an awful color. I know.” Zuko exchanged a silent glance with Mai, then laughed.

“Actually,” said Mai, “I was going to say that orange is growing on me lately.” A placid smile playing at her lips, Mai rested her head against Zuko’s shoulder.

Zuko’s eyes widened. “Who are you and what did you do with Mai?”

Mai sniffed. “It must be the _mommy brain_ so many people warned me about. I’m starting to like quite a few things that I thought I hated.”

Zuko’s arms snaked about her waist and held her fast to him. “Like what?” he asked, a hand gravitating as always to the swell of her belly. His heart fluttered furiously when he felt a stir underneath her robes; the reminder that their child was _real_ and _alive_ and _would be here any day now_ had retained every ounce of the magic it possessed when he felt it for the first time, even after all these months. He could only imagine the mess he would be when he was finally able to see the baby with his own eyes, to hold it in his arms. Every now and again, he felt a pang of envy over Mai’s inextricable closeness to the baby—but then he reminded himself of the hardships she’d endured as a result and counted himself fortunate that his only charge for now was to support her.

Mai pulled her legs somewhat closer to her stomach. “Mm,” she hummed pensively. “Being underestimated, for one thing.”

Zuko’s brow furrowed. “Who’s underestimating you?”

“Oh, no one we care about. It’s mainly the nosy ladies in the court, the stuffy old noblemen, the more conservative Fire Sages, the gossip-prone members of the general public… You know, the usual suspects.”

Shaking his head, Zuko rolled his eyes. “Well, they ought to finally shut up now that we’re giving them what they’ve spent seven years begging us for.”

“I’m finding it more funny than anything recently,” began Mai. “They think I’m too fragile to participate in council meetings. That’s nothing but a bunch of sitting and talking.” A single laugh escaped her. “And it’s hilarious how scandalized some of them are about my size. I suppose they expected me to skulk off into the shadows once I became an eyesore, like a _proper lady_. My mother certainly expected that.”

“You’re not an eyesore,” Zuko argued, miffed on her behalf at the implication.

“I am in high society, Zuko. You know that.”

“And your mother—,” he hastened to continue. He growled under his breath in frustration. “Just when you think you’re getting somewhere with her, it seems like she does something to undo all her progress. She needs to get it through her skull that you’re never going to be someone you’re not. She’s had _fifteen years_ to come to terms with that.”

Mai smiled amorously. “I must really be going soft. I tend to have some sympathy for her lately. She’s only passing on what she was taught. I pity that she hasn’t broken out of the cycle the way I have.” Lifting her head from his shoulder, Mai cupped Zuko’s jaw and lowered his head until their eyes met. “But I’m grateful to have you in my corner.”

Zuko mirrored her smile with his own. “Where else would I be?” He tilted his head and met her lips with his. Against her mouth, he murmured, “If we have a girl, at least one of us needs to supervise her visits with your mother. At least for the first few years, anyway. I don’t want her giving our daughter any… complexes.”

“That’s another thing,” Mai murmured in turn. “At first, I hated the idea of having a girl. I was afraid that she’d be stifled the way I was—not by us, but by my mother and the other people in her life whose words we couldn’t control. Better if we had a boy; then I wouldn’t have to worry about that.” She drew back from Zuko a fraction of an inch, winced and gasped a little when she felt a sharp kick to her rib, and took a deep breath. “…But as the months went by, I’ve become enamored with it. I want to raise a girl the way I wish I’d been raised.” Unbidden, Mai’s eyes began to gleam with unshed tears, and she cursed under her breath.

“ _Aww_ ,” Zuko teased fondly. He embraced her tighter, but not so tight that it would cause her any more pain. “This is a momentous occasion. Usually I’m the one who cries first.”

The first tear trickled down her cheek in a long rivulet, and she buried her face into the crook of her husband’s neck. “Shut up, Zuko,” she objected weakly.

Any further well-meaning jesting perished on his tongue when a thought came to him. “The women in this family haven’t been very lucky,” he pondered quietly. “My grandmother died giving birth to my father. My aunt died giving birth to my cousin. My mother was abused by my father for years, then banished for protecting her child. Azula…”—was still a sensitive subject for them both, but Zuko soldiered on nevertheless—“Azula was abandoned.” He rested his cheek against the side of her head as she wept silently into his shoulder. “I think I understand what you mean, Mai. I want to raise a girl the way I wish my sister had been raised.”

Mai could see that girl now in her mind’s eye. She would have Mai’s pragmatism and composure and Zuko’s passion and determination. Zuko’s unruly hair would flow behind her when she ran, and Mai’s piercing glare would strike fear into the hearts of any who would curb her free spirit. Or perhaps she would inherit Mai’s straight, raven locks and Zuko’s expressive eyes, those that could transmute love and kindness to rage and conviction with such unstoppable momentum that it mystified Mai to this day. She would be all of their greatest qualities in one perfect, beauteous creature. Mai’s heart filled to bursting with joy with the vision alone of her, this romanticized daughter of theirs.

Of course, no person was perfect—Mai understood this intimately, surrounded by imperfect people as she was (and, indeed, being an imperfect person herself). But Mai was resolved to love even their child’s imperfections with unyielding ferocity, the sort of love of which she and Zuko had been deprived as children.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, holding each other as Mai exhausted her limited supply of tears on Zuko’s shoulder. The sun sank further below the horizon, pinks and oranges bleeding violet and indigo. The half moon that occupied the darkening tapestry of the sky grew brighter as the sun dimmed and vanished. Zuko, for his part, felt the seas of his qi bank low under the light of the moon, and he wondered idly if Mai, in spite of her nonbender status, could sense a similar change in her own qi.

“Are you worried for me, Zuko?” Mai breathed suddenly.

Zuko hesitated. Was he worried for her? He was worried for them both, in the most general sense; parenthood was an undiscovered country, after all, but his anxieties were mostly tempered with the knowledge that they would navigate its mysteries together, and that they would have at their backs the steadying forces of his uncle, his mother, and all the other trustworthy individuals in their life who had already embarked on this adventure. He feared, still—most of all, he feared retaining the wrong lessons from the wrong people, the Ozais and Azulons and Sozins who raised their children with unrestrained cruelty and wrought that same cruelty, in turn, on the world—but he was more at peace now than he had ever anticipated he would be.

However, the prospect of his wife’s impending labor was another matter entirely.

“Of course I am,” he confessed. “I love you, Mai. I don’t want to see you in pain, but that’s inevitable now. I’m worried that something might go wrong. Especially with the baby being late…”

Mai chuckled, a low and throaty hum. “The greatest healer in the world tells you there’s nothing to worry about and still, you worry.” She pecked his jaw. “Yes, the pain is inevitable. But I knew exactly what I signed up for. Need I remind you that I was there when Tom-Tom was born? That was as traumatic a birth as I can imagine, and my mother made it. _Without_ Katara.”

“But—”

“But nothing. I’m scared, too. I’m the one who has to squeeze the damn thing out. And having seen how that went for my mother…” She sighed. “But I want this. I want it badly. For a long time, I didn’t think I wanted it at all, but once we started trying I became… attached. I’m willing to endure the worst for it.” _I’m willing to die_ remained unspoken, but it was implied enough for them both.

The Fire Lord’s shoulders, once stiff and squared with his racing thoughts, now relaxed. “We have to do something nice for Katara once this is behind us,” he suggested with a note of amusement in his voice. “I would be going completely insane if we didn’t have her.”

“I already offered to take Bumi off her hands for a week once everything’s settled down,” Mai said wryly.

Zuko grimaced. Frequently regaled with more than a handful of tales from both Katara and Aang about their firstborn’s uncontrollable rambunctiousness, Zuko braced for the worst.

“Well,” he settled, “if we can handle him, we can definitely handle this one.” He stroked Mai’s stomach, and she smirked contentedly.

* * *

“ _Finally_ ,” was Mai’s raspy exaltation when their comically wide, unfathomably comfortable bed came into view. Marrying into royalty had many perks, and this one was her unequivocal favorite (other than the luxurious meals).

Zuko wasted no time in removing the outer layer of his robes and shaking his long hair out from its topknot. “It’s amazing how tiring it is to relax,” he remarked drily. “I feel like I could fall asleep standing up.”

Mai, too, freed her hair from the confines of the tight, more elaborate hairstyle in which it was daily bound. “I hope you’re not too tired to _relieve my discomfort_ like you promised this afternoon,” she crooned. “A little help?”

Like a dog to a dinner gong, the Fire Lord dutifully sauntered over and undid the knots of her tunic from behind. His head slithered around her neck until his lips could ghost across the warm flesh just underneath her jawline. “I never back out of a promise,” he mumbled.

A quiet moan quivered like a bowstring in the back of her throat, and she tilted her head away from him, fully exposing the fair column of her throat to his ministrations. Alongside the many setbacks of pregnancy had also come some unexpected benefits: her hair was more lustrous than ever before, her skin supple and radiant, and her lust nigh-insatiable. Just the smallest caress from Zuko could set her ablaze, particularly lately.

“Mm-hmm,” she concurred. She shifted herself as Zuko removed her first layer of clothing. (So many layers, and these robes were meant to be _casual_ and summer-appropriate!) “It’s only _honorable_.”

Her husband drew back briefly to remove his tunic. “Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. “You know, there’s no quicker way to turn me off than to start with that.”

“Like all men, you’re a slave to your whims, Zuko. All I have to do is show a little skin and you forget all about your wounded pride.” Just to demonstrate her point, she let the shoulder of her inner robe slip off to expose some of her milky flesh. She cast a sidelong glance at him over her bare shoulder and bore her teeth lasciviously.

Zuko stilled for a moment and narrowed his eyes at her. After a silent standoff, Zuko exhaled defeatedly, though with a glint of mischief in his light eyes. “Alright, you win,” he relented. Again, he reached out and untied her inner robe, which she let fall from her arms and pool at her feet.

He bent over to pull off his boots, and she turned more gracefully than her disproportionate center of gravity ought to allow to face him. “I’ll also need some help with these,” she quipped, and she stuck out one foot to indicate her own pointed-toe boots.

His feet now bare, he gave an inelegant scoff. “ _Yes, dear_ ,” he drawled, a dopey impression of a put-upon husband. “ _Of course, dear._ ” He knelt before her and pulled off each boot, then tossed them unceremoniously to the side with his own discarded footwear. Kneeling still, he coiled his hands around her calves and began to lift her underskirt—the only garment she still wore—with fingers that traveled further up her legs at a deliberate pace. He ducked his head underneath the skirt and trailed slow, lazy kisses up her inner thigh.

Even though he could hear the hastening of her breath above him, her underskirt suddenly dropped onto his head, halting any further progress upward.

“Zuko, we don’t have time for this,” Mai deadpanned, having unfastened her underskirt herself. “My ankles are killing me.”

Zuko retreated from her thigh, removed the skirt from his head, and stood. He arched his eyebrow. “Well, fuck me for making an effort, then,” he ribbed sarcastically.

She cocked her head, and her smirk broadened. “That’s the plan.”

He snickered, and she wove her long fingers into the hair at his scalp, pulling him down for a kiss. With her opposite hand she loosed his pants, and against his mouth she muttered a command: “Get in the bed, Fire Lord.”

Zuko stole one more fleeting but scalding kiss. Then, he stepped out of his pants and sprawled himself out on the sleek, burgundy sheets of their bed in a fashion that made Mai’s fervor for him crest achingly within her core. Without delay, she hoist her weight on top of him—she imagined that she lumbered about more like a komodo rhino than a woman, but all her grunting and panting didn’t appear to diminish an inch of Zuko’s arousal—and straddled him with a base keening noise caught in her throat.

So too did her husband grunt a little as he took her weight. She cast him a pointed look like a shuriken’s blades. “I’m not _that_ fat, am I?” she pressed.

“No,” Zuko retorted, a husky susurrus. Languidly, he lifted his hand and cupped her right breast, minding her recent sensitivity there with a gentle squeeze. “Oh, I love you.”

Satisfied, Mai smiled approvingly. She laid her hand on top of his and dragged it closer to the center of her breast. “I love you,” she echoed softly. Mai flattened her opposite hand on his torso and splayed out her fingers over the starburst scar below his chest, and she began to rock.

* * *

Very early the following morning, after Mai surprised them both with many hours’ worth of stamina and the two subsequently drifted off in each other’s arms, Zuko roused from the immersion of slumber to Mai hissing his name and shaking his shoulder.

“Wha—,” he rasped, cracking one eye open reluctantly to peer at her standing over him. “Wha’shapp’nin…”

Mai drew herself up slightly and finished tying her robe about her protruding waist. A chunk of of her bangs stood up on end; she had fallen asleep with them folded underneath the weight of her head. “It worked,” she said hastily. “My water broke. You have to get up.”

He shot up. “It worked?” he repeated numbly.

“No, Zuko,” she snarked. “I’m just kidding. Go back to sleep.”

He ignored her jeering completely and leapt out of bed with a surge of energy. “I’ll go get Katara,” he declared, and he started to make for the door—

“Zuko, you’re stark naked. Put some clothes on before you cause an international incident.” With a wave of her arm, she indicated the robe and pants she’d already laid out for him as he slept. “And you don’t need to get Katara. I already sent a guard to wake her.”

He stopped in his tracks, his eyes darting between Mai and the clothes laid out on his side of the bed. Then he squinted at Mai’s side, whose sheets were entirely soaked through with fluid.

“Huh. You seem calm,” he observed. “I was expecting more, uh… screaming.”

“The screaming part comes later,” she explained evenly.

He threw on his pants and fastened his robe with some urgency still, but Mai’s expedience quelled a great deal of his anxiety. She had spent months mapping out her plan to the letter, he knew, and she was supernaturally gifted in the art of obscuring her emotions, but he sensed that for now she was truly collected and composed.

In the heat of battle, trust Mai to snap into action at once.

Zuko took a long, stabilizing breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth, then swept Mai up into a ferocious hug.

With a hoarse giggle, Mai let herself be enveloped. “I love you,” she vowed. She cradled her belly with both arms, where she could feel their baby wriggling as it prepared to enter the world. “I love you both.”

Zuko closed his eyes. “Aren’t you happy we took that day off now?”

Mai nodded against his chest. “Yes,” she agreed. “I’m ready for what comes next.”


End file.
